Watch Only Half an Episode

On November 7, Novaya Gazeta Evropa reported that a Russian TV station and streaming service cut half the dialogue from a popular sitcom episode in which the main character thinks someone could be gay.

"Voroniny," ("Voronin's Family") in English, is a popular Russian TV show that aired from 2009 to 2019. The sitcom was an adaptation of the popular American series Everybody Loves Raymond. "Voroniny" has been called "one of the most successful shows on Russian television." The cast and writers broke a Guinness World Record for the longest TV adaptation.

In the show's episode 6 in season 4, the main character, Kostya, suspects that Lyonya, his older brother and an army colonel, might be gay, because he doesn't get along with his wife. Dialogues on the matter include a debate on whether Lyonya is gay, simply because he has a Freddy Mercury poster. Another important fragment of the show is a discussion between Kostya and his homophobic father, Nikolai, in which he explains that persecuting queer people is wrong. The brothers' mother, Galina, supports her son and says, "Lyonya is our son, and we must accept him even if he is gay. Don't worry, Lyonya. It's ok that you are gay."

According to Novaya Gazeta, the show's fans complained on X of "some strange, broken dialogues that make no sense." It was then discovered that Russian TV network STS decided to cut out half of the 2010 episode on its streaming service, reducing its length from 24 to 12 minutes. The original, uncut version of the episode has effectively been scrubbed from the wider internet, too, as other sources embed the video of the show from the STS website.

For the past year, Russian streaming services have censored movies and series, both foreign and domestic. For example, male hugs and references to suicide were removed from Edward Norton's "Fight Club." Singer Vera Brezhneva and actor Artur Smolyaninov were edited out of the 2010 Christmas movie "Yolki" (New Year's Trees) for their anti-war stances.